After a successful career in corporate and real estate finance, Doug Danforth decided to go to the dogs.
The result is LINKS-IT, the first-time entrepreneur’s novel product that quickly, easily and securely attaches ID tags to pets’ collars.
Danforth was CEO of Midland Loan Services in Overland Park, a subsidiary of his longtime former employer PNC Bank. After leaving Midland in 2006, he wanted to try something new.
That “something” occurred to Danforth five years ago as he was changing his three dogs’ ID tags. There had to be a better way to remove and connect tags to their collars, he thought, than the clumsy and time-consuming ordeal of using “that metal thing called the split ring.”
“People disdain it,” Danforth said. “That was the basis for the idea of LINKS-IT. But ideas are relatively easy. Execution is everything.”
So Danforth assembled his team, including a veterinarian, a machinist, a plastics engineer,
an accountant, a lawyer, a graphic designer and a marketing specialist.
“An early indication of the power of the idea was that they were all excited by it,” he said.
The four-year development process involved dozens of prototypes of various shapes, sizes, materials and configurations to create a “super-strong, super-durable, super-light, super-compact” pet ID tag connector with a retail price under $10, Danforth said.
For the past three years, DuPont Performance Polymers has provided technical support on the design and choice of materials. In fact, without DuPont’s Delrin material, Danforth said, the final product would not have been possible.
“We couldn’t have done it without this material,” he said. “This material enables our product. It bridges the gap between metals and plastics.”
“All of us field-tested patent-pending LINKS-IT on our own dogs,” Danforth said. “And then, as we got close, Kansas State University’s engineering department tested the device.”
Even before LINKS-IT launched to veterinarians and retailers last summer, the product received accolades. At the 2013 Global Pet Expo, the United Inventors Association of America awarded LINKS-IT its Pinnacle Award.
“Making something totally new and different was not on our list of objectives, but that’s what it took to meet our objectives,” Danforth said. “And it’s very gratifying. We are addressing a fundamental need in one of the most emotive—call it happy—sectors out there.”
